


Gas To The Flame That Burns Me Alive

by cheesypoofs666



Category: southpark - Fandom
Genre: Demon Summoning, Fluff, M/M, Poetry, Slow Burn, curly goth - Freeform, goth kids - Freeform, red goth - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2020-12-12 04:09:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20974709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheesypoofs666/pseuds/cheesypoofs666
Summary: [PETE'S POV] There's been a long time of repressed feelings between Michael and I. I spent a long time avoiding Michael, I can't avoid him forever so now I'm forced to face my feelings and see where it takes us; Michael leaves for a funeral and we both get to thinking about our past relationships...What was I so afraid of...





	1. Fuck

Hey, my name is Pete I’m seventeen, some people know me as red goth because those fucking conformists couldn’t be bothered to learn my name, I guess it’s because they’re unoriginal and just refer to the red in my dyed fringe.

Whatever. Anyway I’m sitting legs crossed and back against the headboard on a soft suede black Betsy Johnson blanket embroidered with a large skull on Henrietta’s bed tapping my pen on my black poetry book deciding what to write.

Henrietta is eighteen now and doesn’t have to bug Michael all the time to buy her cigarettes, she’s sitting at her desk fixing her eyeliner, Firkle is fifteen now holy crap. He’s on the ground with headphones on, scribbling away some hardcore metal lyrics in his book, kid can write man.

Michael is two years older than me, tall and constitantly intimidating to be around. I've always had a thing for him but I've never really let it show, I just shove that shit down. He isn’t here yet he said he would just meet us at the graveyard at twelve. I flip my hair and let out a sigh closing my book.

“Hey guys we gotta go it’s like 12:05.” Henrietta says, getting up from her desk, damn she looks good, she used to be pretty chubby when we were kids but she slimmed down quite a bit since then, she’s wearing a black crop top with overalls, fishnets and her iconic combat boots, still rocking that cigarette clove with her long black hair and dark eyes she looks right at me.

“Fuck Michael is probably already there.” I said whilst sliding off the bed and nudge Firkle. He slides his headphones off and looks up at me.

“Hey man we’re leaving.” I look down at him, damn this kid has grown alot he has dark black eyes and a black dress shirt and jeans on with black doc martens.

“Is it cool if I stay back? I’m starting to restructure the lyrics.”

“Yea you can sit at my desk Firkle we’ll be back in a few hours.” Henrietta says sliding a long thick trench coat on.

“Sweet.” Firkle slides onto the chair, headphones back on and starts scribbling away.

We pulled up to the cemetery and I see Michael in the distance leaned up against a headstone smoking a cigarette, I like the way the smoke leaves his lips with the light fog in the background so I decide to take a picture with my phone.

Henrietta snorts and I look over at her nervous she was laughing at me but she was looking at something on her phone. I feel a little relieved.

I get out of the car and shut the door but she’s still preoccupied typing something on her phone so I just make my way across the field to meet up with Michael. It’s fall so the trees around him are various shades of orange, yellow and red. The dead leaves crunch under my boots as I step.

“Hey Curly.” I say casually as I lean on the headstone next to him. He looks up at me with his curly hair he let grow out, it looks really nice shaggy, his hair is a jet black that is in stark contrast with his pale skin. He puts his cigarette up to his mouth and a little smoke comes out as he talks.

“Hey Red.” He stares right through me with a piercing gaze that makes me flush a little. I nervously grab my pack of smokes from my jacket pocket and put one up to my mouth, I start to flick at my lighter but it just sparks, must be out of juice.

“Fuck.” I curse under my breath. I could feel him staring at me, I look up at him as he’s right in front of me.

"Here, suck." he puts his hand under my chin and pushes the end of his cigarette to mine, my breath hitches, I catch wind of what he’s at and breathe in as my cigarette lights and my chest fills with smoke I exhale it gratefully. His hand now back on his side but he’s still close. I'm pretty sure I'm blushing like a loser and my heart is thundering in my chest. Fuck he’s so hot.

I feel a little anxious because I really fucking like Michael in the most conformist poser type of crush way imaginable and it’s really fucking embarrasing. I've never really thought about if he might actually like me back.

Henrietta is always the one who pushes those conversations. But she can be extra annoying and pushy about things and I wouldn’t want her to be that way if she found out so I keep my dumb little crush to myself.

I’m snapped out of my thoughts as Henrietta calls me, I raise an eyebrow and hold up my phone looking over to the empty spot where her car was as she speaks on the other line.

“Stupid fucking conformist bitch I’ll be back later.” Well that’s what I caught anyway between the excessive swearing, probably something with her mom or some shit. She hangs up and I put my phone down. Fuck.

I’m going to be honest with you I’d made it a fucking sport up till now to not be alone with Michael for more than a few minutes at a time because it gives me anxiety and makes my thoughts spiral. I look back at Michael and he’s blowing smoke staring out in the distance obviously disinterested.

“We just got ditched.” I said breaking the silence. He looks over at me and smirks.

“Whatever. Wanna go to my house?” He offers and my heart skips a beat. Fuck. Be alone with him and at his house? Fuck.

“Yea whatever.” I say as cooly as I can fuck am I panicking. He gestures me to follow and starts walking away, my mind is going crazy but at least my body responds as I follow behind him. He pulls his ear buds out of his jacket and puts one in his left ear and stops to hold one out to me I come up to his left side and put the other bud in my right ear and instantly start hearing the Bauhaus playing Bela Lugosi’s Dead. Love this song.

I start to ease up a bit more, feeling less tense. We pass by a few houses but somehow I keep misstepping and the earbud keeps falling out of my ear. Michael stops and I follow as he puts the bud back in my ear and links his arm with mine and starts walking again. This is nice, it feels like we're just picking right back up where we left off before I decided to avoid him for a long time. Why did I do that.

I glance over at his face as we walk hes lightly nodding his head in unision with the song. I’ve never really noticed before but he has alot of freckles around his nose and face, he catches me staring and I blush a little.

“Do I have something on my face?” He asks curiously.

“Freckles.” I blurt out and he laughs. Wow I’ve never heard that laugh before it was nice.

“Yea they’re so fucking lame.” He says looking away.

“They look good on you.” He looks at me with an unreadable emotion on his face, he opens his mouth to say something but closes it. Fuck I feel stupid. We walk in silence for a few minutes before we reach the chain link gate in front of his house. I hear barking, his dog must be in the backyard.

He unlinks his arms with mine and my arm feels cold from the lack of warmth, we step up into his house and walk up the stairs, I follow behind him. We make our way to his room and he shuts the door behind me as I sit down off the side of his bed staring at him.

He walks over to his stereo and puts on a Skinny Puppy album I can't quite name.

“Can I ask you something?” Michael says standing right in front of me, his towering figure looming over me.

“Y-yeah.” I stutter nervously, fuck I’m so lame.

“Did you used to fuck that Raven kid Stan?” I blush, fuck. That was years ago but that was around the time when I was finding out I was gay and he appeared to have the same darkness as me, but he was just a fucking poser.

“Yes.” I say as bluntly as I can staring into his eyes. I see an emotion take place in Michael’s eyes, is that a tinge of jealousy?

“Why are you asking that so suddenly, that was years ago?” I ask curiously. He looks away from me for a moment in thought and then stares back at me. He responds with another question.

“What happened?” I blink a couple times wondering if this was real life but decide to play along.

“Uh well, he came into our circle acting like he had the same darkness but it turns out he was a pussy poser which is honestly worse than a regular conformist. It was stupid..” Michael listens carefully still looming over me which makes me a little frustrated.

“But ya know I actually really liked him I was willing to put that bullshit he was into in the past but his true nature showed, yea he was gay but no he was not goth. I was actually fine with it but he decided when he was done with the phase I was out too. It hurt I’m not gonna lie. It was stupid as fuck.” I stand up confidently.

“Did you fuck that Damien antichrist kid?” Oh I remember it, walking into the bathroom when Michael was still in school, him and that Damien kid making out against the sink, it was when I decided that I was probably gay because that was the first time I got a boner looking at another guy, and not just that a steamy makeout session with Michael and the fucking antichrist.

“Yea.” He says bluntly.

“What happened?” I ask, it’s only fair. Michael crosses his arms defensively.

“I railed him in the bathroom a couple times but he was honestly really fucking annoying just like his bitch ass daddy.” Michael said with a slight temper.

“Fuck that’s hot.” I let out, shit. Michael raises a brow at me.

“What?”

“I walked in on it once, it was fucking hot.” I say getting a little heated. I don’t know where this confidence is coming from.

“You little shit.” Michael steps in front of me and pushes me back on the bed pushing his knee in between my thighs. My Breath hitches as I sit up and glare at him.

“I jacked off to it too.” I say biting my lip staring into his eyes, enjoying getting this kind of rise out of him. I swear he just growled at me as he towers over me pushing our lips together.

“Ffuck” I kiss him back maybe a bit to needily. Fuck I’ve wanted this for so long. When did it get so hot in here. He pulls back.

“I knew it.” He says half lidded, hand in my fringe now completely straddling my lap, pinning me down.

“What?”

“That you had a thing for me, all these years. I could fucking feel it.” I feel my pants getting really tight at his words.

My phone rings and Michael eases up his grip on me and slides it out of my pocket answering. I struggle to push Michael off of me and I manage to sit up and start biting at his neck as he talks to Henrietta.

“Yea.” Michael says the occasional one word response as I start to grate my teeth down his pale neck biting down gently as he moved his neck for easier access he trails his free hand up my shirt feeling my back. Fuck.

“Yep.” I start to suck and he shoots a warning glare at me which I stop for a moment and hear Henrietta yapping away on the phone so I pull him into another kiss, with tongue I start to kiss him passionately and he pulls away leaving me wanting more.

“No.” His hand runs through my hair and I melt into his touch

"Ya, bye." He drops my phone and grabs my hand pulling me up straight as his hands fell to my waist and he kissed me again. He pulls back and looks me in the eyes.

"You're the gas to the flame that burns me alive." Fuck is he reciting his poetry to me.

"You're the koolaid to my cyanide." I say back. He smiles, fuck I could get used to that but he would never break his cool in front of the others.

"Jim Jones huh? Nice one."

"Thanks." I smile back, fuck I love this guy. I hear my phone going off, its Firkle calling this time. Michael runs a hand through my hair and slips out of the room while I answer. I lay back on his bed and stare at the ceiling of Michaels room.

"Hey man, what's up?"

"Dude there's a dead body in the parking lot at Benny's."

"Oh shit."

"Yea dude, you guys gotta come see this they have like the whole perimeter of the parking lot surrounded with cops and tape its crazy."

"Homicide?" I ask hopefully, the gorier the better.

"Ehhh, I don't think so but hurry up!" And with that Firkle hung up. I scan the room and see no trace of Michael so I walk through his door and instantly a strong scent of coffee wafts through the air. I followed that scent downstairs to his kitchen where I find him about to pour out two cups into mugs.

"Hey, grab a thermos instead." He looks up at me, stopping in his tracks.

"Dead body at Benny's." I clarify and I can see the excitement in his eyes.

"Sweet." Is all he says while he pours black coffee into a large thermos and hands it to me. He puts the other two mugs away and slaps the counter.

"Got any details? Actually no I wanna see it for myself." Dare I say it's fucking adorable how excited he is right now. I'm snapped out of my thoughts as he slips his hand into mine and leads me out the house.

We walk up to the Benny's parking lot and Firkle was right, there was tape all around the the scene but it seems like we were just on time as we see a glimpse of the dead lifeless old man zipped up into a black body bag. I look over at Michael who is smoking a cigarette watching closely.

"Fucking conformist probably had a heart attack realizing his life was a rat race living paycheck to paycheck for corporate gain." I flip my hair and take a drag of his cigarette. Michael snorts in response. Henrietta and Firkle flag us down and we walk over to meet up with them.

"Hey guys, disappointing right? I was hoping for like dismemberment or some blood at least. So lame." Henrietta says while blowing out smoke from her cigarette clove.

"Life is pain. Life is only pain. We're all taught to believe in happy fairytale endings. But there's only blackness. Dark, depressing loneliness that eats at your soul." Firkle says and then all of us go:

"Ya." In unison. I take a sip of the warm coffee from the thermos, fuck that's some good dark roast.


	2. Fuck You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm above dumming things down for your simpleton conformist mind, just fucking read it.

So it's later in the day and Michael and I are next to each other sitting on the side of Henrietta's bed writing in our books. Well Michael is writing, I'm doodling a crow perched on a cross shaped headstone with a liquid black pen on the lined paper in my book.

We occasionally brush against each other while we work. Firkle is at Henrietta's desk with his headphones on, still working on that song from earlier. Henrietta is in the corner practicing on her bass guitar, she's playing the baseline from The Everlasting Gaze by the Smashing Pumpkins.

"That sounds really good Henrietta." I say honestly. She looks up at me and smiles still playing.

"Thanks, I've messed up a few times but ya know I just started learning it today." She says bashfully.

"Well I couldn't tell, seriously that's awesome." She just smiles and keeps playing. Michaels phone starts to ring and he picks it up.

"What." He said in a deadpan voice. I started to wonder who he was talking to.

"Sweet." I catch a glimpse at his book but before I could put together a sentence he closes it.

"What the fuck why should I care?" Michael starts getting a little heated and turns off his phone throwing it on the bed behind us. I look over at him and he pushes some of my hair behind my ear he then slides my book from my grip and scans over the page.

"This is sick. Can I have it?" He looks over at me. What? That's not even my best work it's just a doodle.

"Seriously?" I say incredulously. He looks at me with a serious face.

"Ya, it looks cool as fuck but if you wanna hang on to it it's cool." I bite my lip and scribble my signature on the bottom near where the grass sticks out on the bottom of the gravestone and then I carefully rip it out of my book handing it to him. He takes it from me and stares at it for a while, I slip his book from his lap and pick a random page to read.

_Sweltering heat, aching feet, running towards death sweating time's wrath._

_The sweet cold release of the grim reaper, something I pine for in the summer and feel close to in the winter._

_I feel him in the frostbite on my fingers with a cold touch, I breathe in the cold crisp air and for a moment I feel at peace before the darkness puts me back in my place._

_One day it will be my time, a lifetime of agony leading up to that one sweet cold release._

"Dude, that's so hardcore." I say out loud. Michael takes a peek at the passage I'm looking at and shrugs.

"Eh, I've written better." I look up at him mouth agape. Wow, I don't even match up to his lesser work. I flip through and find a photograph stuck in between the book of all four of us as kids sitting outside the school with our boom box on our red blanket. I let out a light laugh.

"Aw man, simpler times." Michael takes it out of my hands and I catch a smile forming on his face. We hear Henrietta’s mom call for her in the distance across the house. He puts the picture back in the book and takes it away.

"Alright, alright. That's enough of that." Henrietta stops playing her bass and walks out of the room, I hear the door slam behind her and distant yelling between her and her mom.

"Wanna smoke?" I ask pulling a joint from behind my ear. Michael gives me a surprised look.

"How long has that been there?" He starts running his hands through my fringe looking for more secrets. I let out a laugh.

"Only an hour or so I rolled it earlier." I say putting the joint up to my lips, I started digging into Michaels pocket looking for his lighter he just rolls his eyes and swats my hand away taking it out from his other pocket. He then holds the flame up to the end of it as I puff in a couple times to get it going. I blow out the smoke in perfect little O rings. Michael slips the joint out of my hands and takes a few hits mumbling something about me being a showoff.

He then french inhales the smoke catching it through his nose and then blows it out in my face, I slip the joint from his fingers, sliding off the bed and nudging Firkle. He slides his headphones off and looks up at me.

“Thanks man.” Firkle says as he grabs the joint and instantly takes a few puffs of it.

“Fucking bitch.” Henrietta shouts before entering the room with a slam behind her.

“Ugh, I need that.” She walks over to Firkle and takes the joint putting it up to her lips.

“So you guys have to go my heroine addict aunt is coming over.” She takes a puff.

“What a laugh.. just an excuse for my mom to bitch at me for not wearing girly clothes like all the Brittney wannabe conformist nazi cheerleaders.” She hands the joint back to me and I put it out in a nearby ashtray.

So we got kicked out of Henrietta’s place, Firkle went to go meet up with someone, he didn’t really say who, I’m still with Michael, this time I decided we should go to my place and hang, my parents are out of town for the weekend and I have the house to myself.

Finally some fucking peace and quiet. I’m nice and stoned on the couch next to Michael sharing a bag of salt and vinegar lays chips in my living room watching a Thousand Ways to Die on Spike tv. I have the bag of chips in my lap and I swear he takes extra time to grab the chips out the bag just to fuck with me.

“You’re a fucking tease.” I say finally getting fed up enough with his occasional brushing against my thigh and munching of chips. I catch him mid bite so he just chews and stares at me, he picks up my hand and sticks my index and middle finger in his mouth and starts sucking off the chip dust.

“Ffuck.” My breath hitches, now he really is being a tease. I pull my fingers out his mouth and he bites down before taking them out and pulling me into a kiss. Suddenly there’s a knock on the door and I sigh and flip my hair.

“What the fuck.” I grumble as I get up and walk to the other room to open the door and see who the fuck it is. I was taken by surprise when I see Stan at my doorstep. Oh this has got to be good.

“What the fuck do you want?” I say with a sharp tone to my voice and I see him flinch a bit which I honestly get a rise out of.

“I want back in.” I squint my eyes at him, he can’t be fucking serious.

“What are you on about, poser?” I say crossing my arms.

“My grandpa died.” My eyes go wide in realization.

“Oh shit, the old fuck that croked at Benny’s?” I flip my hair as Stan glares at me. I cut him off before he can speak again.

“What the fuck does that have to do with me?” I say growing impatient, I could be doing anything else but this right now. Stan rubs the back of his neck nervously.

“Well, it got me thinking about us..And how I ended things so badly. I didn’t want to accept my sadness, I didn’t wanna live like that so I just ran away from it. But I know I hurt you.” I start to get pissed the fuck off.

“I literally don’t give a fuck, that was years ago and you’re irrelevant to me.” I say coldly about to slam the door in his face but he catches it with his foot.

“Wait, c’mon give me a chance, I think I’m ready this time. Ready to accept who I am. I’ve never stopped thinking about you. When I was fucking around with Kyle I was thinking of you the whole time.” I step forward and punch Stan square in the fucking nose.

“Jesus fucking christ.” He holds his hand up to his nose, gushing with blood staining his blue mittens.

“Get the fuck away from me poser.” With that I successfully slam the door in his face and I’m pretty sure it hit him as I heard a thud and a-

“Aw FUCK.” come from the other side. I hear laughing behind me, I’m not sure when Michael got there but it seems like he was there long enough to witness the gist of it. I turn around and start laughing with him.

“God, what a fucking pussy.” Michael says. I roll my eyes.

“Seriously, he thinks he can just walk back in after all this time because his suicidal grandpa finally got his time clocked? Bullshit.” I say shaking my head. Did that really just happen?

"I need a cigarette." I grab Michael's hand and lead him out to the back porch, we walk down the steps off the deck into the yard, plopping down on the chairs with cushions around the ash filled fire pit. I instantly light a cigarette and put it up to my lips feeling the light relief wash over me for a second as I feel the smoke fill my lungs. I exhale.

"Fuck, dude." I run a hand through my hair and look up at the sky turning multiple shades of orange and pink as the sun sets. It's almost dark enough to start a fire and maybe we can do a ritual or something. Michael must of had the same idea, I look over to see him throwing some old branches and cardboard from old beer packs in the pit.

"I bought some duraflames the other day they're in the shed." He nods and heads towards the back of the yard entering the shed against the fence coming out with a duraflame log and some powder packets to change the color of the fire.

"Oh shit I thought we used all of those last time." Michael places everything strategically and puts the packets in a row on the log that sits on top.

"Let's wait another twenty minutes for the sun to go down." I suggest and he just nods and plops down next to me, bumming my cig and taking a long drag, admiring his handiwork.

I walk into the house to grab a six pack of beers and come back throwing one to Michael, he pushes the top off with one flick of his thumb and starts to gulp it down. I struggle a bit more trying to mimic his move. I end up getting it off with a little more effort finally taking a sip.

"Ya wanna summon Cthulhu?" I ask casually. He just shrugs.

"Whatever." We both get up and I start to carefully pour lighter fluid over the fire in the shape of a pentagram. Michael places one match on each of the five points of the pentagram. I pull out my book and start scribbling a Sumerian summoning chant I light it with my lighter and put it in the middle of the fire, Michael and I chant in unison.

"Enta. Rosa. Estrada. Con. Significo. we call upon Cthulhu." Instantly the liquid pentagram glows a bright green at the base as a cyan blue emits the top of the flame, a thick fog instantly fills the entire backyard. A strong wind flows around the fire before its snuffed out, a figure with glowing red eyes starts to emerge from the reignited flames.

Cthulhu animated, a sleek demon with a squid like appearance, tentacles seeping from his face and long bat like wings drag behind him. He burps and sits down at one of the chairs, the seat singes from the heat underneath him.

"Sup' fags?" Cthulhu says in a dark deep voice.

"Why haven't you burned this stupid ass town to the ground and risen from it's ashes yet? This sucks." I say, blowing the smoke out while I talk.

"There's more misery in this town than I could possibly take credit for, I'd be doing these foolish mortals a favor wiping them out." Cthulhu replies, I throw Cthulhu a beer and he sticks the whole bottle in his mouth, I hear the sound of the shattering glass crunching as he gulps it down his esophagus. That's so metal.

"That's so gay." Michael says bored.

"Not as gay as you taking it in the ass from the son of satan." Cthulhu says bluntly. That caught me off guard as I was mid sip so I end up spitting out my beer and choking. I look over at Michael for a clarification from what just came from our cult leader's mouth. He looks at me with an embarrassed look.

"Ok so I let him top a couple times, big fucking whoop." Michael says looking away from me not wanting to make eye contact.

"Yea you screamed like a banshee too." Cthulhu said with a deep dark laugh. I chuckle lightly to myself it's not all the time someone challenges Michael like this, he just glares at me.

"Don't fucking encourage him." Michael says to me obviously getting all worked up.

"C'mon Curly, chill. It's not that big a deal." I say whilst discarding my beer in the yard.

"Yeah Curlyy." Cthulhu mimicks in a deep throaty voice that echo's through my ears. Cthulhu takes another beer crunching down on the glass in his mouth spitting out the bottle top onto the ground, strangely the top is a bright red burning into the ground with a string of smoke emanating off of it.

"Have you guys fucked yet?" Cthulhu asked and my face goes red, embarrassed I try to cover it up by chugging my beer. Michael runs a hand through his hair.

"Nah." He responds for both of us, simply put. Cthulhu lets out a dark laugh.

"Ya know I banged Satan once back in 500 BC.." Cthulhu trails off reminiscing on his wild mystically long and confusing life. My mouth is agape, not everyday your Cult leader squid demon tells you he butt fucked the lord of the underworld.

"Whiny little bitch." Cthulhu says with a deep growl.

"Ya." Michael and I say in unison. Cthulhu gets up and steps back into the fire.

"Alright I'm going back, the mortal realm fucking sucks." Michael snorts.

"Pft, at least you don't have to stay in it." Michael says taking another sip from his beer.

"One day my loyal followers, one day." And with that Cthulhu disappears with a long girthy burp, the flames snuff out and there leaves no trace of him except the burning cap that has left singe marks on the ground around it and the completely burnt and torn chair cushion he was sitting on.

I turn to Michael who is looking back at me.

"So, there must of been a little more to that Antichrist then you were on to?" Michael let's out a deep sigh. He chugs the rest of his beer and chucks it behind him.

"OK, fine. I was technically obsessed." I listen closely to Michael's words graciously ready to hear his full story.

"It's like whenever I was around him, he had me in a trance. When I wasn't around him I couldn't care less where he was or what he was doing." I start to light up another cigarette as Michael talks.

"At first I liked fucking him, he usually let me take control, let me do what I wanted, but slowly over time I lost any sense of control I might of thought I ever had.."

"When he came around I was drawn to him, all I could think of was how much I wanted him, in whatever way I could get. I'm not sure if that's like a form of demon roothies or however you want to think of it but over time I grew to fucking despise him. When I was with him it was pure bliss, I felt no disdain for him..but when he was gone I felt used, manipulated. It just didn't seem right to me."

Michael reaches over me to grab another beer, flipping the top off and taking a swig.

"Finally one day he left, and never came to me again. I was free." I am at a loss for words I really had no idea this is how that whole thing went down. I start to feel guilt pool in my stomach at getting off on that relationship in the past now that I know the true nature. It was practically mind rape. Fuck.

"That's crazy dude, I had no idea." I flick my cigarette into the pit of ashes. Michael gets close to me grabbing my chin and bringing my face up to his. He looks down at my lips and back in my eyes.

"Hey I didn't tell you that so you would feel bad for me, don't you dare fucking pity me. That was years ago and I've gotten the fuck over it, so should you." He says to me not breaking contact. I simply nod my head. He removes that hand from my chin and runs it through my hair pushing it back.

"I told you because I really fucking like you and I don't want to keep things from you..So while we're in the habit of telling eachother things my uncle died today." I blink a couple times, soaking in all this information.

"Wow, okay." I start to bite at my lip.

"That was the phone call I got earlier at Henrietta's, my dad told me he died from a stroke."

"Sorry Curly." I say empathetically.

"We weren't close I only saw him briefly at dumb family get togethers a couple times a year, it's not a big deal to me." A silence creeps so I decide to admit something to lighten the mood.

"I fucked Mysterion last year." I say honestly.

"McCormick is still on that gimmick?" Michael says with a surprised tone.

"Holy shit Mysterion is Kenny?" I start to laugh.

"Dude, literally everyone already knew that." Michael starts laughing with me. He then pushes me playfully, I nudge him back and feel a chill creep down my spine.

"We should head inside it's starting to get pretty cold out here." I start to notice I can see the cold wispy air of my hot breath when I talk. Michael nods and follows me inside.


	3. Fucked in the Head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> . . .

I shiver and rub my hands together as I slowly regain my body heat in the solace of the house. Fuck, it's gotta be about eighteen degrees out right now. I take a peek outside through the glass door behind me, a fresh blanket of snow begins to envelop the yard as it falls from the sky gently.

Michael's phone starts playing the song burn down hot topic; he picks it up and walks into the living room.

"Hello..yeah" His voice fades out as I go through the opposite doorway to the kitchen giving him a little privacy. I open up the top of my coffee maker taking out the old filter by folding the top, careful not to spill the old coffee grinds and dump it into the trash. I put a clean white filter in and scoop a cup of fresh grounds in, closing the top and starting the process.

Michael's coffee maker is way nicer and not quite as ancient as mine. I think it's called a kuerig or some shit. Whatever.

"Pete." I turn around and see Michael enter the kitchen and walk up to me.

"What?" He slides his hands around my waist and pulls me into a quick kiss, pulling back softly, leaving me wanting more.

"I gotta go." He can see the slight disappointment in my face, he cuts me off before I can respond.

"But I'll see you tomorrow okay?" He says reassuringly.

"Yeah, alright." I walk him to the door and with one last kiss he's gone and I'm alone. My thoughts start to spiral as I sit down at the kitchen table watching my coffee brew.

I can't believe his relationship with Damien was so intense. I mean, I know we're all fucked up. But it really makes you think what kind of psychological shit that could do to someone. The smell of coffee fills the room as it finishes brewing. I sit and stare at it absentmindedly for a moment before I get up and open the cabinet in search of a suitable mug.

I pick out a souvenir Fort Lauderdale mug retrieved from a family trip to Florida from a couple years ago. Fuck that vacation was so stupid, we went right in the middle of summer. I got so sick from the heat I didn't even leave the hotel for the whole time we were there. I was miserable. I pour out the steaming liquid into the cup and zone out staring at the steam emanating from the coffee float freely through the air.

Smoke is so cool. Speaking of I should definitely spark up. I take a sip feeling the warm sensation of liquid go down my throat heating my body up. A shiver goes up my spine and it makes me wiggle my back a bit.

I feel my phone vibrate in my pants. I hear a light clack as I set my mug down on the counter next to me, sliding my phone out of my pocket I read the incoming messages.

Firkle: "hey man what are u guys up to"

Firkle: "im bored af..can I come hang with u guys"

Me: "Curly just left but you can still come over if you want. I'm home."

Firkle: "cool omw"

I put my phone down and take another sip of coffee looking ahead of me at the dumb magnets on my fridge zoning out. I'm not sure how long my dumbass was standing there looking at my fridge but the next thing I know I hear a knock on my door. I walk into the other room and see Firkle let himself in. He nods at me.

"Sup'?" He closes the door behind himself and stuffs his hands in his pockets.

"Hey man, was about to roll up if you want to match." I gesture for him to follow me into the living room.

"Yea cool, can I roll it?" Firkle offers as he plops down onto my black leather couch, he slides his grey backpack off onto the ground next to his feet and pulls out his grinder and OCB rolling papers.

"All you dude." I pick up a small chest from under the coffee table and take a few nugs out handing it to him, putting the container back in it's place.

"What did you guys do after we split?" Firkle asks whilst putting the weed into the top part of his grinder. My heart starts racing at recalling the last few hours spent with Michael.

"Well first of all you'll never guess who showed up on my door step today." Firkle looks up at me as he starts to twist the grinder breaking up the weed.

"Uhhh. Who?"

"Marsh." Firkle nearly drops the grinder out of his hands but catches himself.

"No fucking way."

"Yea he was whining about his dead grandaddy and how when he fucks Broflovski he thinks of me and shit so I decked him in the nose and told him to get the fuck away from me." I flip my hair and take a sip of coffee. Feels good to tell this to someone who wasn't here to witness it.

"What a pussy." Firkle shakes his head. I let out a laugh.

"That's what Curly said too." Firkle smirks and begins to empty the grinder onto the thin paper rolling it between his fingers skillfully.

"What about you?" I catch something in Firkle I don't see often, he's blushing.

"I was with Ike..the other Broflovski ironically enough." He laughs a little nervously.

"Oh, I didn't know you guys were close?" Firkle doesn't respond right away as he licks the paper and seals the joint.

"It's new for the both of us." And then it clicks._ He's with Ike_.

"That's cool." Firkle looks up at me with bright eyes and smiles. He looks happy and maybe a little relieved.

"I've never really talked to him before?"

"He's really deep man." Wow he must be really into him.

"Have you told Henrietta?" Firkle snorts.

"Fuck no." I nod in understanding. Letting Henrietta in on things is like introducing the parents but for nonconformists like us. It's a big step. Bitch likes to get in our business and that's a fucking commitment.

"We summoned Cthulhu earlier." I chime in changing the subject.

"Aw man, what did that asshole say?" Firkle puts the joint up to his lips and lights it with a match.

"Some shit about how he used to casually buttfuck the lord of the underworld." Firkle shakes the match out and flicks it into the ashtray.

"Wicked." As Firkle says that smoke comes out of his mouth and he passes the joint over to me after another puff.

"Yeahh..Plus Michael and I have been getting closer recently too." I hit the joint but I think I hit it too hard cus' I start coughing a bunch, I take a sip of coffee to clear my throat and Firkle slips the joint out from my other hand.

"I thought you didn't like being alone with him?" Firkle pries.

"Well, I honestly think that was just my attempt at pushing my feelings deep, deep, way the fuck down." Firkle nods and blows the smoke out sucking it back in as a ghost.

"I always knew he had a thing for you." Firkle admits to me offering the joint back to me. I put my hand up to signify I'm done smoking, that coughing fit has got me high as fuck right now. He holds it between his fingers as he talks.

"I think he liked that you would avoid him, he would usually ask about you when you weren't there, look over my shoulder when I would show up to Benny's before you. Just little stuff like that."

"Fuck I wish I knew. My line of thinking is, I rather him not be around me to get annoyed with me. I liked being around him so much I started seeing myself as a hindrance."

"Damn, I was wondering when you would both get a clue. He thought you avoided him cus' he thought you knew he liked you." Firkle keeps talking before I could get a word in.

"Ya know what I think Pete? You overthink but under speak."

"What do you mean?"

"You're constantly overthinking everything and speak too little. You get stuck in your head man."

"Fuck, you're right."

"I know I am, cus' I do it too. But I feel like since I started seeing Ike, my whole fucking perspective on everything has changed. Everything feels more clear, ya know?"

"I wish I did, but I'm happy for you man. I feel like I have more to think about than ever." I look down at my mug and mentally face palm.

"Did you want some coffee?" I offer Firkle as he's typing something on his phone. He looks up at me and back down.

"Actually, I think I'm gonna head out."

"Oh, ok." Firkle packs up and heads out the door.

"Goodnight man, see ya later." I take a glimpse at the time it's only 11pm..but fuck it I'll just go to sleep.


	4. Fucking Cute

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> . . .

I’m walking through the thick layer of snow that fills the sidewalk and street, every step I take leaving a fresh impression of my boot. I trudge through and make my way up to the driveway of Michael’s house. A creaking sound follows the chain link gate as I open it. I make my way up the steps to the front door. I knock on the door a few times waiting for an answer hearing faint barking from inside. Michael smoothly opens the door and his grey and white pitbull peaks through his legs at me panting and shaking her tail happily.

“Hey.” Michael leans in and gives me a quick kiss and I follow him inside knocking the snow off my boots at the frame of the door. Michael closes the door behind me, I sit down on a chair and pry my boots off, not wanting to track through the house. The dog starts to jump on me sniffing me and I smile as I notice she’s wearing a diaper, I pet her head and she pants happily.

“Lexus get down.” Michael commands as she runs back over to him and lays down obediently looking up at me with big eyes.

“She is so cute.” I get up from the chair walking toward Michael.

“Yeahh, Lexus is on her period so we put her in a diaper so she doesn’t bleed all over the floors.” Michael walks into the other room, I follow him to the kitchen. I hear the clacking of claws on the wooden floors as Lexus follows behind us. I lean against the opposite counter watching Curly’s fluid movements as he pours out two fresh cups of coffee, he hands one to me.

I take it gratefully and can’t help but stare at his lips as he puts the warm mug up to them to take a sip, he lowers the glass and I see the movement of his neck as he swallows. He licks his lips and I absentmindedly lick mine. He catches me staring in which I nervously take a sip of my coffee.

“Fuckk your coffee is always so much better than mine.” I take another sip smiling into the cup.

“Well, yeah. That’s obvious.” Michael puts his mug down next to me and presses his body against me, pinning me in place. As he pushes our crotches together I feel my face warm up. Fuck.

“Hey Red.” He says in a low tone that chills my bones as he slides his hands up and down my sides. I put my mug down next to his and place my hands on his waist.

“Yeah?” I ask flipping my hair out of my eyes as it falls right back in place.

“Sorry I had to leave so early.” He moves the hair and tucks it behind my ear. I press my lips into his and melt into his touch. He kisses me back slow and starts to run his hands through my hair, I let a light moan slip out through the kiss and he breaks it staring into my eyes half lidded.

“You’re so cute.” I laugh, it almost feels unnatural to hear that kind of thing from Michael’s mouth but I'm living for it.

“What- I just my hair is so thick it feels nice when you run your hands through it.” I say nervously looking off to the side. Michael kisses my cheek and trails kisses down to my neck. I tilt my head the opposite way, I feel heat pool in my stomach as he starts to kiss the crevice of my neck and chin, lightly grazing his teeth over a few spots.

“F-fuck.” I swear I never expected things would be so sensual with him.

“Can I ask you something?” I say as I play with his hair. He pulls back from my neck and picks up his mug to take another sip.

“Yeah, shoot.” He looks me in the eyes, drinking his coffee.

“How long have you had a thing for me?” He smiles and rubs the back of his neck nervously.

“Heh, well.” He looks away from me in thought biting his lip. I pick my mug up and take another sip.

“Let’s just say a while.” He looks back at me.

“What about you?” He prys.

“That’s a cop out but okay.” He rolls his eyes and waits for my answer.

“Honestly? Since I’ve known you, it started out as a general wow this kid is cool, I like being around him. But then it turned into fuck I need to stay away I’m catching feelings..”

“What do you mean?” He blinks a few times processing my words.

“Well around the time you were fucking around with Damien I started to notice what exactly I was feeling and since then my brain also decided that I could never compare to the actual antichrist and that I would never be in your league. So I avoided you alot..I would show up late to things just to make sure I wouldn’t catch us alone. The idea of it scared the hell out of me.” I shrugged and downed the rest of my coffee.

“Now c’mon tell me. Fair is fair ya fuck."

“Wow, okay. Fuck.” Michael says while putting our cups in the sink. He leans next to me on the counter and looks straight ahead of himself beginning to finally spill his feelings.

“Well, I've always liked you Red. I find you fucking fascinating. The things you say, the way you carry yourself. Your art, your mind. I started fucking around with Damien when he first came to me to get out frustration. It was never supposed to be a serious thing, Besides his ominous powers and upbringing, the kid was pretty fucking dull. You could tell he spent most of his life living vicariously through his dad and so called destiny.”

I start to shift around a bit getting uncomfortable from standing but wanting to hear the rest of his story. So I walk forward and sit at the table, Curly follows suit and sits down next to me resting his arm on the table and continuing his rant but looking me in the eyes now.

“When you started fucking around with that Raven kid, I couldn’t fucking handle it. The jealousy would literally consume me. I just kept my distance and held my tongue.” I could see the expression in his face of how deeply that affected him, I cross my arms and lean back in the chair listening intently.

“Seeing you happy was nice, I could tell you really liked him and I didn’t want to get in the way of that. But when he dumped you and went back to being the normie conformist the next day, fffuck. I was so pissed Red.” 

“Seeing someone so not worth your time and caliber get you feeling so low. It just didn’t seem right to me.” Curly shakes his head.

“I had no idea.” I look down at my feet and a silence creeps over for a moment before Curly speaks again.

“Did you really fuck McCormick last year?” Curly asks me curiously. I look up at him mouth agape. I clear my throat.

“Yeaa, that happened. It was just a one time thing though.” I say honestly.

“What did happen?”

“Weeell, he was patrolling the streets, I was taking a walk through Stark’s pond, mildly tipsy from a few glasses of whiskey and coke.. He came up behind me and it scared me so I body flipped him over my shoulder onto the ground.”

“You body flipped Mysterion?” Curly starts laughing.

“Haha yeah, and then I helped him back up like oh shit my bad bro. He then said it was kind of a turn on, we made out and things escalated from there. To be honest I had no idea it was Kenny until like literally recently.”

“Why did he keep the mask on when you guys fucked?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, so you like it kinky?” Michael says quickly and it makes me blush.

“Well who have you fucked recently.” Michael is taken aback by this.

"You really want to know?” Michael asks resting his arms on the table.

“Duh.” I say nudging him playfully.

“Christophe.”

“What? That weird mole kid? I thought he moved to North Park?”

“Yeahhh, well you haven’t seen him since we were kids, he’s a pretty cool dude. Saw him in town a few months back, we had a couple drinks and one thing led to another. Haven’t seen him since.”

“Okay I’m gonna tell you something don’t get mad.” He crosses his arms defensively.

“I got sucked off by Makowski a couple weeks ago.” Curly starts laughing and pushes his hair back.

“Wow, okay.” I get a little embarrassed and I’m not sure what to say.

“Vampir right?” Curly confirms smiling at me.

“Y-yeah.”

“Damn, I really didn’t see that one coming..Recently too. Wow.”

“Ok, fuck you.”

“Did he turn you?” Curly starts laughing again, my cheeks are red and I’m super mad.

“Dude shutup..” I pout and cross my arms looking away.

“He must of at least marked you somewhere isn’t that his thing.” Michael starts to scan his eyes up and down my body. I bite my lip.

“Damn I’m jealous. Did you return the favor?” I look back at him and answer.

“Nah, he was really scared I was gonna kick his ass the whole time, it was kind of weird he just kinda said thank you and left quickly.”

“You know he’s like 3 years older than you right?”

“And?” I say raising an eyebrow, Curly is like 2 years older than me.

“That’s badass.” Curly says still smiling.

“What?” I question him, he gets up from the table and so do I.

“I’m getting jealous.” Michael says grabbing my waist and pulling me into him. He towers over me looking down at me with an almost possessive look.

“What are you gonna do about it?” I say playfully looking up at him. I hear Lexus banging her tail around getting excited near us.

“Do something all these other guys don’t get to do.” I tilt my head questioningly.

“Be my boyfriend?” Curly asks grabbing my hand and putting it up to his lips kissing it.

“Okay.” I say smiling. Holy shit pinch me is this happening. MIchael kisses my forehead and intertwines my hands in his. I look into his eyes.

“Listen, what I want with you is something deeper than just casual sex or unrequited love for someone. I want to be with you in the sense of you being my everything, I don’t care who you fucked, because there’s a deep connection between us that burns so deeply. I’m so fucking happy to finally address it and not just that embrace that feeling and fucking revel in it.” My eyes widen with his words.

“I don’t want you to get stuck in your head anymore, I feel like it’s my fault for not being upfront with you from the beginning. It started out as a fear of rejection, I didn’t know if you were even into guys back then but through the years seeing you evolve and grow, there is this deep admiration I’ve always held for you and always will. I want you to know that.”

“Wow.” Is all I manage to choke out before I find some words.

“I really haven’t ever had that with anyone Curly, all those dumb hookups and little flings could never hold up to the standard you’ve set from day one. You’ve always plagued my thoughts. I love how you think, I love how deeply you feel. Most of all I love how when you do choose to share, you can convey your feelings almost poetically. It’s fucking beautiful.” Michael kisses me sweetly and slow. Fuck I can definitely get used to this.

“We gotta tell Henrietta.” I say seriously.

“What about Firkle?” Curly asks curiously.

“He knows, we were talking about it last night after you left.” Curly smirks.

“Oh so you have been talking about me.” I roll my eyes and nudge him.

“Yeah, and apparently he’s been seeing that Ike kid, he seems pretty serious about him.” Curly leads me out the kitchen through the back door to his screened in porch and closes the door behind us.

“Yeah, he told me about Ike. I’ve talked about you to Firkle more than a few times through the years, I’m not gonna lie.” Michael takes a pack of smokes out of his pocket grabbing a cigarette and putting it up to his lips. I’m surprised by this, but Firkle did seem to have some insight about it the other day so it makes sense.

“That’s kind of sweet you guys are close like that.” Michael lights the cigarette and blows out the smoke in the opposite direction.

“Yeahh. Well you know how Henrietta is and you used to avoid me constantly so...yeah.” I feel a little guilty for letting my paranoia keep me away for so long but I guess things happen the way they do for a reason. My phone starts to ring, speaking of.-

“Hey Henrietta.”

“Heyy, what are you guys doing?”

“Just smoking, want to meet up?”

“Yeah. How about Benny’s?”

“Alright yeah, we’re on our way.” I hang up and Michael offers me a hit of his cigarette, I take a puff and speak.

“We’re gonna go to Benny’s.” Michael nods and takes his key out of his pocket locking the back door.

We walk into Benny’s and seat ourselves at our usual booth, I slide in and Michael scoots next to me, Michael puts his hand on my inner thigh and my heart starts to race a bit. Our waitress comes up to us with two black coffees, love when they remember.

“Hey boys, let me know if you need anything.”

“Thankyou.” She walks away to a table close by to take an order. I hear distant yelling and look out the window to see Henrietta slam her car door and talking on the phone. She puts her phone away as she comes into the diner.

“Hey guys.” Henrietta slides into the booth with us, Michael sips his coffee but keeps his other hand on my thigh.

“Hey” I also take a sip from my mug.

“Sup.”

“Ugh you guys are so lucky you left when you did, my fucking aunt is the worst.” The waitress drops off another cup of coffee and walks away without a word.

“Thankyou.” Henrietta takes a sip of her coffee and then continues talking.

“My mom wants so bad for me to be like my conformist nazi Brittney wannabe cousins but sorry mom you got me ughhhh.” She takes another sip.

“And my Aunt is sitting there talking about how her lame son got accepted into Brown. Like okay have fun being in debt your whole life and end up still working some entry level bullshit job you could of got without school anyway. Like they just don’t get it.”

“Fucking Boomers.” I flip my hair and Michael snorts.

“I know right?! ..Anyway what’s new with you guys?” Henrietta stares between the two of us.

“Well Marsh was on my doorstep the other day asking to be ‘one of us’ again.”

“Oh my god. Details.” Henreitta gets excited she loves when we tell her drama.

“Well you know that old guy that croked in the parking lot the other day? Apparently that was Stan’s suicidal grandpa.”

“Nooo wayyyy.”

“Ya, and he wanted to get back with me, he said when he fucks Kyle he thinks of me, ugh. So pathetic.” I flip my hair and sip my coffee.

“What did you say?”

“Well I punched him in the nose and told him to get the fuck away from me, cus’ honestly what the absolute fuck.”

“Wow he is such a little bitch.”

“Ya, Michael was there too, he saw the last bit of it.”

“It was as awesome as it sounds.” Curly chimes in.

“Aw mannn, I wish I could of seen the look on his little poser face, he totally deserved that.”

“But like, are you okay? I mean like I know you guys were kind of serious for a minute there.” Henrietta says with a concerned look on her face.

“Ya, I’m good. I definitely was not expecting that.”

“What were you guys doing? I didn’t know you guys even hang out besides our meetups?” Michael and I look at eachother, Curly shrugs and I talk.

“Well, actually we’re seeing each other now.” Henrietta perks up.

“Oh my goood. I love that for you two.” Michael laughs lightly and I start to laugh a bit too.

“So like. Wow.” Henrietta at a loss for words, something I never thought I’d live to see. Firkle comes in and sits down next to Henrietta.

“Sup guys.”

“Firkle oh my god, Michael and Pete are like a thing.” Firkle smiles and looks at both of us.

“Dope. You guys compliment the other.” Firkle says honestly not wanting to admit that he already knew and set off Henrietta. I take a sip of my coffee, I don’t really have much to say.

“Have you guys fucked yet?” Henrietta pries. I nearly spit out my coffee, I gulp it down hard and start coughing.

“Nah.” Curly answers for the both of us as I calm down. He rubs my lower back lightly, smirking. I hate that dumb look he’s giving me right now.

“But like isn’t that all you guys are about? Fucking around?” Henrietta loves to pry.

“I want to savor every little thing about him and slowly digest everything he is and work my way up to the big things, he’s not what I seeked through other people in the past, I want him in a deeper more divine kind of way, I want to ride it out to the full and get every last thing I’ve missed out on in these last few years.” Damn.

“Damn, that’s so metal.” Henrietta says.

“Wow. Fuck.” Is all I have to say, holy shit I love this guy.

“You guys are goals honestly. That’s so rad, it’s cool to know you guys are finally settling down to have a serious relationship, you guys fuck around so much I thought you would catch something.”

“Oh c’mon it was not like that.” I roll my eyes, if only she knew. The waitress brings Firkle another coffee and fills up our mugs.

“Thankyou.”


	5. Fuckin Creep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> . . .

Michael and I are currently at the graveyard by ourselves hanging out on a bench in the middle of the field. Michael has one arm resting behind me on the top of the bench, smoking a cigarette with his free hand. I'm playing doodle jump on my phone and I'm getting really close to beating my high score. I'm playing the ninja mode and I already have all the upgrades. 

"Fuck!" I missed a platform, shy by a few points to beat my score. Michael starts to card his hands through my hair. I abandon my focus on my phone and close my eyes, leaning into his touch. I hear the sound effect of my little doodle fall as I feel his warm lips press into my cheek, I turn my head and catch his lips with mine. I feel him smile into the kiss as he puts an arm around me. 

"Mmm." Michael puts his hand under my chin and pulls away looking me in the eyes. 

"I leave to go out of town tomorrow." I open my eyes and Michael puts his hands by his side.

"Gotta go to Pennsylvania for this dumb funeral." 

"That sucks." Michael sighs and nods.

"Ya, it totally freaking sucks, but hey I'll be back by Friday." Today is Tuesday.

"Aw man, that really sucks." Michael laughs.

"It's only for a couple days, at least you don't have to go." Michael gets up and grabs my hand, leading me out of the graveyard.

"C'mon I wanna show you something." I follow Michael with my hand intertwined in his. We walk together in a comfortable silence until we reach an area of woods that's behind Michael's house. Michael lets go of my hand and walks ahead of me. 

We stomp through some thick brush to get to a more open area of branches, we come up to this natural staircase of roots and walk up to this beautiful tree with low hanging branches. It almost looks like something out of a Tim Burton movie.

"Woow, I didn't know this was back here." I flip my hair and stand a short distance away taking it all in. Curly sits against the base of the tree and pulls his leg up resting his arm on top of it. Without even thinking twice I pull out my phone and take a picture. Curly smiles at me. 

"I need to get you a real camera one of these days." Curly says quietly as he puts a cigarette up to his lips beginning to light it. I walk down a few steps trying to get those cool root steps in the shot. But I start to lose sight of him.

"Hey do you mind standing up and leaning against the tree a bit?" He shoves his lighter in his pocket and holds his cigarette between his fingers. He gets up smoothly and obliges to my demand. I take the picture and smile looking at it in awe. The raw emotion I captured in his face followed by the beautiful scenery was breathtaking. I walk up the steps looking at the picture and I get caught on a branch getting pulled back as I move forward.

"Aw fuck." He laughs as he watches me struggle with the branch finally getting free and walking up to the tree with him still standing as I told him. 

"Can I see?" He asks curiously. A light blush creeps over my cheeks at his genuine interest and compliance with my dumb hobby. 

"Yeah, sure." I mutter as I nervously pull up the picture on my phone. He puffs his cigarette and stares at the screen.

"Wow the composition on that is amazing, wonder what you could do with a real camera." I smile and accidentally press the little corner button to look at my gallery of photos on my phone. He's still looking at the screen and various candid shots of him show up including the recent one from a few days ago of him smoking in the graveyard with the fall scenery and a few pictures of myself in the mirror.

"I love how much of a creeper you are." I push him lightly and turn red.

"Oh my god, shut up." He looks me in the eyes.

"No I'm serious it's adorable. I've known for a long time you would take pictures of me." 

"Okay I'm officially embarrassed." I kick the ground a bit with my boot and begin to light my own cigarette. 

"Like through the years you've taken dozens of photos me and any normal person would find that borderline obsessive and creepy." I'm shell shocked at this and have no words luckily he goes on as I wordlessly smoke my cigarette and listen.

"But I'm no normie conformist and I know you alot better than that, even if you didn't open up to me often. It's another medium of your art. And I'm damn flattered to be a muse. I find it endearing as fuck. That's why I wanted to bring you here." 

"Thank you?" I question taking this all in. Fuck I am a creeper. I never even thought twice about how many times I've taken pictures of him without him knowing. I guess enough for him to notice I blush and rub the back of my neck nervously. Michael cups the bottom of my chin and looks me into my eyes. 

"Hey, I love that about you so don't change and don't get stuck in your fucking head about it. I was guilty too." 

"What do you mean?"

"I knew for years and I fucking posed for a lot of them, I loved that attention from you. I was starved of it and I would practice conveying different emotions in the mirror, study photography anything I could do to peak that little interest you had in me. I wanted it. I want you." I kiss him softly he drops his hand and holds the small of my back holding me close. I pull back from the kiss and laugh.

"Fuck I'm a creep." I say flicking my cigarette into the thick brush. 

"You're a weirdo." Curly said ruffling my hair. I gesture around me. 

"What the hell am I doing here." I laugh a bit and nudge Michael.

"Hey you don't belong here!!!" Someone yells from the distance. 

"Oh my god we just quoted fucking Radiohead, so gay." I flip my hair. 

"Agreed." Michael laughs and stomps out his cigarette.

"Hey I'm gonna call the cops on you damn kids." I roll my eyes. What a buzz kill. 

"Let's go back in its getting dark anyway." Michael leads me out of the woods. We end up walking to my house, we're a street away from my house and I step on crunchy leaves with my boots walking ahead of Michael. 

"You're such a kid." He says laughing lightly. I stop and look behind me seeing the sun setting behind him, the sky is cast with hues of yellow orange and a deep pink that is almost red. He stops in his tracks smirking at me. 

"What you're going to sit here and tell me you don't like stepping on crunchy leaves?" He raises an eyebrow at me as I stare at him. 

"Can I take a picture of you." I ask politely. He laughs at me and peeps behind himself at the sky and back at me. 

"You've never asked before, why start now?" He jokes. I roll my eyes.

"You've got a point, turn your head a bit I want a profile shot, but still keep eye contact with me."

"Alright." He mutters and complies, He's also got this cute half smirk and I take the picture. I slide my phone back in my pocket and walk up to my house. Michael slides his hands around my waist and I turn around facing him, he kisses me gently and runs his hand though my hair, he pulls back and speaks.

"I'm going to miss you Red." 

"Spend the night." I suggest, he frowns and plays with my hair.

"Can't, we're leaving early as fuck for our flight." 

"Damn, okay. See you Friday then." I said defeated. This is gonna suck. He lets out a deep sigh. 

"How can I say no to that face. I'll stay for a couple more hours then I gotta go." I smile and lead him inside to my room, we take off our boots and I slide off my jacket throwing it over my desk chair. I watch him as he slinks out of his trench coat and puts it over mine. I turn on my space heater and take off my jeans, now just in a shirt and boxers I crawl under my covers. 

Michael still has his pants on he gets into the bed with me. I rest my head on his shoulder and throw my arm around him. He kisses my forehead and rubs my arm tracing over my tattoo of a vulture perched on a skull on the base of my arm. I comfortably start to drift off into sleep.


	6. Fuck Stan Marsh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> . . .

I wake up and feel a shiver run through my body, I feel a lack of presence in the bed next to me and inwardly sigh. Ughhh, this is gonna friggin’ suck man. I slip out of bed, grab my phone off the counter and type in my passcode. New message from Curly @ 4:33 am: “Fuck the population.” I let out a light laugh, I can just imagine him hating his life at the airport. At least he gets to get out of this dumb fucking town for a few days. 

I walk over to my dresser and rummage through a random disorganized drawer for a shirt to wear. I find a shirt that I don’t really recognize, it’s navy blue with red detailing and suddenly it comes rushing back to me. What the fuck, how long has this been in here? And why am I just finding it now? I really need to stop just crumpling clothes and throwing it in my drawers. I pick it up and stare at it, Fuck. Stan. Marsh. 

-_-The story of Stan & Pete-_-

It was a monday afternoon, we were at our spot back of the school per usual, smoking cigarettes and talking about how pointless life is. Everything was the same it’s always been, the four of us listening to Skippy Puppy, trying to one up each other by saying something edgy. 

We had a good dynamic and I liked that for us. I was struggling with my sexuality, I’ve been so caught up for as long as I could remember with hating everyone outside of our group that I wasn’t sure what I was into. That is until about a week ago… 

I asked to be excused out of English to go the bathroom, I was getting annoyed with the general public and I needed a moment to myself to breathe. I decided to go to the bathroom in the basement by the gym, I rarely see people go there and that’s why it’s my favorite one to go to. It’s a little cleaner from being used less often and less of a chance from running into one of these fucking conformists. 

However when I walked up to the door, I heard some noise coming from the inside, wait..Was that Curly’s voice? I’d know it anywhere. I quietly let myself in. The way the bathroom is setup is you see the stalls instantly and you have to turn a corner to get to the sinks. As I walk around that corner I stop in my tracks.

I see Michael pinning Damien up against the sink kissing him. My face instantly flushes at the sight, Damien is rolling his hips into Michael with his arms around his neck, Michael has a firm hold on Damien’s waist, they break from the kiss and I make eye contact with Damien’s red eyes, he smirks at me as Michael bites on his neck and I run out the door as swift as possible, my heart beating fast. I feel a tightness in my pants and everything clicks in that moment for me. That was so fucking hot. 

And that’s definitely the moment I decided I was gay. But since then, I’ve been even more curious to experiment, the only thing is. I fucking hate everyone. That is until that Monday afternoon. I can’t really place what the conversation was at the time, but as Stan Marsh came up to us we all went silent. I actually don’t remember the exact conversation that took place, something about Wendy breaking up with him and his perspective on life changing. He was hurt, he felt true pain and we emphasized for him. Poor tortured soul.

Stan gravitated towards me most from the group and it made me want to take him under my wing, he started to dress like us, he wore all black, eyeliner and this stupid clip on cross earring. He called himself Raven and wore an Edgar Allen Poe shirt a couple sizes too big for him. It was obviously his dad's old shirt. 

One day Stan asked if he could confide in me with something after school. It made me anxious all day, he already spilled his guts about everything what could it possibly be now? I was sitting in my room on my bed, doodling a Raven ironically. Stan was my muse as of recent. I've never thought I could feel so much empathy for someone outside of our group. I used to think of him as a dumb Justin wannabe conformist but now he was totally goth. 

Suddenly he walks into my room and he's nervously rubbing the back of his head. His black bangs are stark contrast to his piercing blue eyes. My heart races looking at him, he looks really good in all black.

"Hey Red." He slides his backpack off his shoulder and comfortably sits down on the other side of my bed, looking into my eyes. 

"Raven, what's going on with you?" I close my notebook and slide it off my lap to the side. Stan looks away from me and pinches the bridge of his nose, he then sighs and looks straight ahead at the wall.

"Too much man." Stan shifts and kicks off his shoes before crossing his legs and leaning on his arms. He looks back in my eyes I lean against the headboard and let him speak. 

"Like I get why Wendy didn't want me, she said I wasn't in love with her, I was in love with the idea of her. That really hit deep. Because I do care for her, at first I found that ridiculous. But the more time passes, I realize..she's right." I flip my hair out of my face and talk. 

"Why do you think that is?" 

"I wasn't a good boyfriend to her, public affection made me nauseous, when we were alone I got anxious thinking of doing anything intimate with her. I don't know, maybe I'm asexual…." Stan runs a hand through his hair and knocks his hat off, it falls to the ground. He lets it sit there as he stares at my wall with a blank expression. 

"Have you ever thought about being with guys?" I asked curiously. Stan's eyes went wide and he looked right at me with almost a panic. 

"No, have you?" He turns it back around at me. 

"Thought about it? Yes. Been with one. No." I said honestly. Stan gapes at me and looks down in thought. 

"I've never really thought about it, I just- okay this is going to sound dumb to you but this was my thinking." He looks back at me as he speaks.

"I used to think I had to keep up a certain standard for myself, play football, have a girlfriend and maintain a status as a respectable jock kid." I snort. 

"Nothing respectable about living a white picket fence idealization of the American dream rat race living paycheck to paycheck for corporate gain. Pfft." I flip my hair and crack my knuckles. Stan nods at me.

"Yeah, totally. But like without that, what do you have to live by? I feel so fucking lost man…I am curious though.." Stan shyly looks away from me. 

"Hmm?" Stan is blushing he looks back at me and I'm calm as fuck, it feels like he's getting really nervous. 

"I am kinda thinking about it, now.." Stan stammers over his words. I sit up on the bed aware of what he's feeling. I scoot closer to Stan on the bed, now in close proximity I'm looking right into his eyes. He stares right back and nervously puts his hand on my shoulder. I lean in and press my lips against his. He's puckering his lips way too tight. I run my hand through his silky black hair.

"Hey ease up, okay?" He nods and melts into the kiss this time. It felt electric. He pulls back and his whole face is red. 

"Wow." Is all he says before I kiss him again, I'm addicted to his lips against mine. Stan starts to get a little more confident and snakes his arms behind my head. I pull back and look down at his lips and back into his eyes. He's panting lightly. He slides his arms back down to his sides. 

"I-I um, that was really hot." Stan says honestly as he grabs at the collar of his own shirt. 

"Yeah you are." Ugh that was so cheesy, why did I say that. Stan smiles and lets out a light laugh which makes me a little self conscious. 

"You're cute Red." I look away embarrassed, he kisses me on the cheek and gets up. I stare up at him. He scoops his hat off the floor and slides his backpack on, beaming. 

"See you tomorrow?" He says happily. 

"Yeah, alright." I said simply. He lets himself out and I stare at my wall. Yup totally gay and totally head over heels for Raven. Fuck. I run my fingers over my lips and smile. So Stan and I were steadily seeing each other, around this time Michael has been gone so much from the group I don’t think he really even noticed me being with Stan. 

I didn’t really understand much at the time why that made me feel so bad. He was obviously busy with Damien doing whatever it is they do. I should just focus on myself. But for some reason I always wished he would catch Stan and I together the way I did with him and Damien. 

Things started to get more serious with Stan, it’s been a couple months and I’ve even brought Stan to that same bathroom during school and made out with him there. Stan and I fucked a couple times and things started to feel different. Stan started to seem different. He started to slowly stop dressing goth. It started with the cross earring, then his hat and slowly he switched back to his old style completely. I didn’t mind it but we had our first and final argument over it when he came over after school.

“I’m not goth.” Stan said straight to me and I just kinda laughed it off.    
  
“Yeah, no shit.” I said crossing my arms. Stan let out a deep sigh.

  
“I don’t want to feel depressed all the time and hate life and shit on everything around me.” Stan said seriously. 

  
“Hey calm down Raven, it’s okay if you don’t want that-” He cut me off and raised his voice.   
  
“My name is not Raven it’s Stan.” He said harshly. 

  
“Okay Stan, what do you want?” Stan paced back and forth and glared at me.   
  
“I don’t want this anymore, I miss how things were before.” I put my hand on his shoulder trying to calm him down. He smacked it off and it honestly kind of hurt but I didn’t let on. 

“What is up with you today?” I said frustrated.

  
“I’m done.” A cold feeling runs through my body and my chest feels tight. Stan storms out and slams the door behind him dramatically. I start to feel tears run down my cheeks and my heart feels like it got torn out of my chest. What the fuck just happened. 

Why did he have to react like that? Like I get that he didn’t feel like a goth but did I have to get cut out too? I didn’t even care if he wanted to be goth or not. I just wanted him to want me. Now I feel worthless. Now I’m the tortured soul, I should of fucking known better. 

-_-Fuck Stan Marsh-_-

I’m now outside in my backyard with a bottle of lighter fluid holding Stan’s flammable soaked shirt over the flames of my fire pit. I drop it in and watch the flames engulf the fabric and turn the shirt to dust. I hear the gate of my yard open and close as Firkle and Henrietta walk into the backyard. 

“Hey dude.” Firkle says as he approaches the fire pit and sits down at one of my chairs. Henrietta follows behind and I catch her looking at the singed seat next to Firkle.    
  
“What happened there?” She asked sitting in the chair across from Firkle. I use a nearby stick and try to push the remainder of the shirt under a burning log a bit so they won’t question me about it.

“Summoned Ctuhulu a week ago, he ate a bunch of glass bottles full of beer and talked about how he used to casually buttfuck Satan.” 

“Sweeet.” She said crossing her legs and smoking her cigarette clove. 

“Was gonna come through the front but we smelled the fire.” Firkle said in between smoking his cigarette.

“What are you guys doing here it’s like 9am?” I asked curiously sitting down and staring at them.

“Well we got up to see the sunrise and we were wondering what you were up to. We were gonna come wake you up and drag you to the graveyard but this is coo too.” 

“I wonder what Michael is doing right now.” Firkle said getting out his phone and texting him. 

  
  


-_- Michael’s Point of View-_-

NEXT CHAPTER. . . ;)


	7. Michael & Damien

-_-Michael's Point of View-_- 

So I'm in Pennsylvania and man I thought Colorado was drab. To be fair I am currently sitting alone in a chair in the corner with a room full of mourning family members. They’re familiar faces but I can't recollect most of their names. There's an open casket with my embalmed deceased uncle laying front and center of the room. 

I barely knew the man why am I even here? Fuck this sucks. I get up from my chair and stride out the backdoor. I take a deep breath as I feel the cold crisp air in my lungs. This area is quite small, just some steps leading from the door and a dumpster to the right of me, a chain linked fence boxes this area in. I sigh and sit down on the second step down, I pull out a pack of smokes of my pocket and slip a cig in between my lips, I flick my lighter a couple times but to no avail, just sparks.

I chuck my lighter in the dumpster and hear a clack as it falls to the metal floor of the dumpster. I let out a deep sigh and rest my head against the railing staring at the rust on the corner of the dumpster. I pull out my carton of cigarettes and my phone falls out of my pocket, the front screen shatters on the ground. Fuck. I pick it up and, well it still turns on, it’s just cracked as fuck. Makes me think of the time I took a sledgehammer to my phone in middle school. Good ol’ prepubescent angst. 

-_-The Story of Damien & Michael-_-

I was in middle school and absolutely hung up on Pete Thelman. We are pretty young but I’m a couple years older than him, he is just so damn precious. He always makes me laugh with the shit he says about people. He’s practically one of my best friends but he has no idea how I feel or that I’m even into guys. I’m pretty sure he’d be fine with me being gay but it’s the feelings I had for him that I wasn’t too sure about. I wouldn’t want anything to ruin the dynamic we had but I was still curious to actually be with a guy. It was around this time that Damien came to me. I still remember everything perfectly clear. 

The actual fucking antichrist was in our class and I always found that fascinating as fuck. Shit, one time in elementary school he lit this kid on fire. He got suspended and since then I haven’t seen him until this year in 8th grade. He doesn’t have that same squeaky voice anymore, he wore all black, had shaggy black hair and piercing red eyes. Such a crazy concept that even the antichrist would still undergo basic schooling. Maybe so he could get an understanding of humanity firsthand before he takes rule? I could think about it for hours and all I was left with was questions.

I found his entire presence alluring and mysterious. He kept quiet, had good grades, didn’t really stand out much except for his title and status. One day after school I was walking out of the building and I felt a presence behind me as I walked out the backdoors. I turn around and I’m face to face with Damien Thorn.

“Hey.” He said to me looking into my eyes and what felt like right through my damn soul. His voice was like tinted glass. Fuck, he’s kind of really attractive now that I get a good look at him. I stuffed my hands in my pockets and stood my ground. My retort was a subtle head nod and a:

“Sup.” He smirked at me and stepped a little closer to me. I noticed how pale his skin is in contrast with the light dusting of freckles over his nose and cheeks. He is about my height, but I’m wearing boots so he has to look up to me a little. Suddenly I catch a glimpse of a light fog surrounding us.

“I like you.” I raised an eyebrow, this is the first conversation I’ve ever had with him and he says that? I’m taken aback for sure.

“What?” Suddenly he presses his lips against me and I had no time to respond before he pulls back and I’m met with red eyes. I blink a couple times. 

“That was my first kiss.” I hold my fingers up to my lips and blush a bit. God I’m so lame.

“And? You want to fuck around?” Damien smiles and I see that he has slightly pointed canine teeth and it felt like every second I was feeling more and more into him. 

  
“Ya.” I respond shortly and Damien pins me up against the back door of the school and this time I respond by kissing him back feverishly. Damien smiles into the kiss and runs his hand down my side, he sticks his tongue in my mouth and fuck I lose sense of reality until he pulls away and leaves me red faced and hungry for more. 

“Fuck.” Is all I say before Damien grabs my hand and leads me to his car. Yes we’re only like 14 years old and he has his own car, but I guess who the fuck is going to tell the antichrist he’s too young to drive? It’s a black viper and it is sexy as fuck. I get into the black leather backseat and he crawls in with me after turning the car on, the album Pretty Hate Machine by Nine Inch Nails plays in the background as Damien crawls on top of my lap. It starts towards the end of the CD as the song “The Only Time” plays.

_ And I don't want to think too much about what we should or shouldn't do _

_ Lay my hands on heaven and the sun and the moon and the stars _

_ While the devil wants to fuck me in the back of his car _

He pulls me in by my collar and I find everything he does so fucking hot. Damien pulls his black sweater off and I stare at his pale toned chest. I just wanna fucking bite it. It’s so perfect and milky white. I start to take control and I push him back and start to pepper kisses down his chest. I hear a light moan come from Damien’s mouth as I suck on the nape of his neck and l slide off my coat in the process. 

Now just in my dress shirt, Damien pulls me into another hot kiss as he unbuttons my shirt with ease. He slips my shirt off and sucks on one of my nipples, I moan as pleasure shoots through my body, I feel every little touch and dip of his hand so intensely. All these sensations feeling so foreign and new it drives me crazy as I let him have his way with me as he pleases. That evening we gave each other messy handjobs simultaneously and I had alot of my firsts in the back seat of his car. 

  
Damien and I used to fuck around any spare second we had. All I wanted to do back then was be with him, he was like a drug and I needed my fix. Whether it be his backseat, a school bathroom, my bedroom, the park, anywhere. But it honestly started actually feeling like a real problem, I was addicted and it was keeping me away from my friends. 

Pete must of been taking it out on me for not spending as much time with him because he doesn’t really like being around me all that much anymore. It feels like he actually avoids me. Henrietta has been bugging me so much to tell me who I’ve been seeing and give her details about it. But for some reason I didn’t want to tell anyone. I told her it was multiple guys so she wouldn’t try and single anyone out and get on my case but that wasn’t enough for her. Firkle didn’t really give a fuck so that made me have a new respect for him. 

I wasn’t sure when but being with Damien started to be something I dreaded. When I wasn’t around him I was trying my best to get Pete to start talking to me again, I would tell Henrietta to get the group together to go to Benny’s, drink some coffee and talk shit like old times. But being with Damien changed everything for me and Pete. 

I just didn’t know why, or what I could do. Pete would show up late and he would talk to me when we were all together but if I asked to hang out he would have something else to do. Damien would come to me randomly and when he was around me he was all I could think about. Apart from him I would sit for hours by myself practicing what I would say to him next time I saw him about how I needed a break or maybe just break it off completely, but when he came over I lost my nerve.

Around this time that kid Stan Marsh joined our group, at first I didn’t really care. He seemed to have some serious mental issues going on and he wanted to be goth so we just let him into our circle. He started getting close to Pete which made me subtly jealous. Henrietta would talk about how they should totally be together and yeah that made me really jealous. So it made me hit up Damien more. It made me want to stay away because it killed me to think about that being true. I was glad Pete was experimenting but for some reason I always thought it would be with me. But I’m with Damien, that was my choice. I think I fucked up.

The only time I’ve ever been able to resist Damien was after I read a text from Henrietta that set my soul aflame. I was filled to the brim with rage and ready to fucking murder someone. That rage consisted up of a few different factors, Stan Marsh broke Pete Thelman’s heart, Stan Marsh wasn’t even worthy of him, Stan Marsh was a fucking poser. He wasn’t even goth! He totally infiltrated our group and I didn’t stop him. He came in and fucking wrecked my ex best friend’s heart and I had absolutely no control over it. 

Now, usually when Damien would come to me, I would notice this vicious pattern as of late. Before he would show up, I would tell myself to break things off. He would arrive and all my senses would burn, tingle, fucking scream for him and his attention. I would give in, indulge, it would be fucking enigmatic. Then he would leave and I would feel guilt, self loathing, draw a bath, lay in it and hold my head under the water until I was gasping for air. One time I really scared myself I was coughing up water for a good half an hour and couldn’t move. It was these fits of depression and darkness I would undergo shortly after these encounters, it made me realize that this really isn’t normal at all. I think Damien has been doing some fuckshit to keep me at his whim. 

This time was different. I was home, outside in the backyard, shortly after receiving the text I decided to take a sledgehammer to my phone repeatedly on the ground. Plastic, shattered glass and bits of technological pieces getting pummeled into the grass by direct force. Lexus was just a puppy, I didn’t want her to get near the flying parts, so she’s inside barking at me through the window. 

When Damien walks into the backyard, I dropped the hammer and stared right into his eyes as he approached me.

“I’ve never seen you like this. I like it.” Damien stood his ground in front of me, smirking and crossing his arms.

  
“I’m done Damien.” I said confidently. Damien’s face dropped and his arms went to his sides.

  
“The fuck are you on about?” Damien hissed at me. Suddenly a dark thick fog creeps around his feet and quickly envelops us. 

  
“I don’t want this anymore. I’ve felt this way for a while.” Damien laughs and it I feel a pain in my chest as he speaks.

“I don’t believe you.” Damien steps towards me and usually at this point I would give in. He puts a hand on my chin and pulls me in close to look into his eyes. I frown at him. Damien stares into my eyes for what felt like forever and I never break my cool, I don’t give in, there’s this egging feeling to kiss him, touch him, be with him but I fight it. I fight it hard. With every last fiber of my being I become a rock, solid, unmoving, I think I was even holding my breath because when Damien finally puts his hand down I feel myself gasp and nods. He says nothing more and walks away from me. I am unmoving as I watch him exit my backyard. That was the last time he came to me.

-_-Yeah, Fuck Stan Marsh-_-

I start to think about that relationship. Do you think Damien knew the effect on me? Do you think he meant to make me yearn for him? Do you think it was normal that I felt so fucking suicidal after being with him? I only ever had the gull to tell him I didn’t want to be with him once and that was the end of it. Maybe he didn’t know. Maybe he did and he just decided it wasn’t working anymore. Maybe it was some form of demon magic, that would explain the drastic side effects at least a little. 

Ya know, after being with him. It just lead me to even more questions about his upbringing. We never really did much talking as you can tell. Our relationship was purely physical. It made me have a real dull outlook on him. We never talked, we never connected, just fucked. Throughout the years after that I did mess around with a few other guys, I never experienced anything quite like what I did with Damien. In terms of pleasure and feeling so fucking awful afterwords. Yeah it felt good to fuck around and get that release but with Damien it was a fucking high. I felt like I was on like heroin or some shit, like a mental demon brand of heroin, the best highs and the lowest lows.

Maybe I should feel fortunate for not feeling that way. But the highs were up there. I think that’s why I love Pete so much. We have a connection, an amazing one. One we’ve always had even if we have kept a distance for a few years. I wouldn’t say we’ve grown apart just separately. By that I mean, we picked right back where we left off. I love being with him, fuck I think I’m in love with him. I always have been and always will. 

-_-Back to Pete-_-

Final Chapter coming soon...


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